There are aspects of crossover design that are often not taken into account. A good crossover is near transparent.
Loudspeaker drivers are even more horrible. Cabinets are just terrible! Stereo sound reproduction itself is foolery!
But that is why we love this hobby!
Not my experience at all.
Some of the best renderings of female vocal I got from some 12" Tannoys crossed at 1.2k.
The right crossover in conjunction with intelligent driver choice and crossovers are transparent.
I also go with Michael Chua in that if I have to cross below 2k I'd choose a cd and horn over any dome.
I was not as impressed when I heard the 12" Tannoy (I assume it is the classic series with coincidental drivers.)
I do agree the female vocals are unequaled. Can't even imagine how it might be possible to get as good as this. But for the price, I'd expect a more focused (hifi) image. They are really hard to setup, too, and the weight of course didn't help with that.
Which makes me think, even at a low crossover point of 1.2k and even with the fact that it is coaxial, the transition from a 12" to a tweeter is still too abrupt and still leaves too much of a gap. This can't be lobing because this is a coaxial, so it must be the off-axis of a large cone. The tweeter was deeply recessed to limit its dispersion but then this is limiting the dispersion of the entire speaker to accommodate the large cone. (Haven't measured or read but I'd expect the off-axis curve to still be smooth but drops off rapidly.)
I do agree the female vocals are unequaled. Can't even imagine how it might be possible to get as good as this. But for the price, I'd expect a more focused (hifi) image. They are really hard to setup, too, and the weight of course didn't help with that.
Which makes me think, even at a low crossover point of 1.2k and even with the fact that it is coaxial, the transition from a 12" to a tweeter is still too abrupt and still leaves too much of a gap. This can't be lobing because this is a coaxial, so it must be the off-axis of a large cone. The tweeter was deeply recessed to limit its dispersion but then this is limiting the dispersion of the entire speaker to accommodate the large cone. (Haven't measured or read but I'd expect the off-axis curve to still be smooth but drops off rapidly.)
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More than 3m, which is the distance i tried to listen to them.
New large diameter woofers are somewhat strange beasts. They are sensitive but they are hard to move. Since they have heavy membranes (to be able to withstand the impact from motor) their spider is quite rigid. So combining it with waveguide with CD you end up with loudspeaker >95dB that sounds dull when listened with few watts. They want AB amps rather than tube or A class SS and at least 10W in them to come to life. In smaller spaces that tends to be too loud for normal listening. So it looses the main advantage - high sensitivity. There are exceptions like AE, Deltalite 15", Altec/GPA and few Beyma models but that's it.
Since i don't have room that large, i had to ditch them in favor of lower eff speakers.
Listening distance and that feature of modern PRO woofers are the main reasons why i don't listen to large waveguides in my home.
New large diameter woofers are somewhat strange beasts. They are sensitive but they are hard to move. Since they have heavy membranes (to be able to withstand the impact from motor) their spider is quite rigid. So combining it with waveguide with CD you end up with loudspeaker >95dB that sounds dull when listened with few watts. They want AB amps rather than tube or A class SS and at least 10W in them to come to life. In smaller spaces that tends to be too loud for normal listening. So it looses the main advantage - high sensitivity. There are exceptions like AE, Deltalite 15", Altec/GPA and few Beyma models but that's it.
Since i don't have room that large, i had to ditch them in favor of lower eff speakers.
Listening distance and that feature of modern PRO woofers are the main reasons why i don't listen to large waveguides in my home.
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I've never come across a speaker easier to set up in any room than Tannoy DCs.
The horn is 90degree conical and so of the constant directivity type. Together with a 12" cone and the 1.2k crossover this makes for the smoothest transition possible. Going up in frequency it narrows smoothly to 90deg and then stays there all the way.
They are supposed to be listened about 15 degrees off axis so no toe in required. The only thing to remember is that they should be further apart from each other than from the listener but not that far that a hole in the sound appears so the equilateral triangle doesn't work so well.
Tannoy gave a maximum distance between speakers as 13ft for the 12s and after a couple of decades owning them I agree, over 4.5-5m there is a distinct gap.
The beauty of being co-axial is that you can be arbitrarily close to the things and they will sound great. In fact it doesn't matter where in the room you are, they always sound the same. Not something I can say about most non co-axials.
I've built some active 3way mains around one pair of my Tannoys which I wouldn't swap for ATCs. Haven't tried Geithains yet though...
Maybe, maybe not.
Gated measurements from 1m distance(with gate valid to at least 250Hz) of loudspeaker on and off axis to at least 90deg in 10 or 15 degrees increments and gated individual responses of all drivers in cabinet with crossover in place would tell us more. Then maybe we could work on it a bit.
Gated measurements from 1m distance(with gate valid to at least 250Hz) of loudspeaker on and off axis to at least 90deg in 10 or 15 degrees increments and gated individual responses of all drivers in cabinet with crossover in place would tell us more. Then maybe we could work on it a bit.
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I'd agree with mr. Darwin here. I have two pairs of PA coaxials at home - a pair of 15 inch B&C's in my living room and a pair of 18Sound 8-inchers sitting atop my desk in my study - both crossed over under 2kHz. The 15-inchers are crossed at 1,2k and the smaller 8-inchers at 1,8k, and both render female voices rather better than I've heard any a more conventional multiway speaker perform. Especially the smaller ones - maybe since they're being enjoyed in the nearfield, at an arms length maybe - make e.g. Melody Gardot sound quite enticing, to put it nicely.
But it's true that to go that low you do need a CD. And a good one at that. Doesn't need to be the most expensive, just good. And once you get used to the effortless power CD's have, domes just don't cut it anymore, no matter how expensive. At least for me they don't. Just too colourless a presentation.
Then i guess Dutch&Dutch is going down because their 8C monitor uses classical dome tweeter crossed over at 1250Hz to 8" alu cone Seas woofer.
Too bad. They could have made it - if only they knew that dome can't play lower
Grimm Audio with their LS1 is in danger too. So is Amphion, Neumann with their KH line of studio monitors, Genelec and many others that produce studio monitors with dome tweeters that play well bellow 2000Hz on which our music is mixed.
Too bad. They could have made it - if only they knew that dome can't play lower
Grimm Audio with their LS1 is in danger too. So is Amphion, Neumann with their KH line of studio monitors, Genelec and many others that produce studio monitors with dome tweeters that play well bellow 2000Hz on which our music is mixed.
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Then i guess Dutch&Dutch is going down because their 8C monitor uses classical dome tweeter crossed over at 1250Hz to 8" alu cone Seas woofer.
Too bad. They could have made it - if only they knew that dome can't play lower
They can, as evidenced by many a finnish loudspeaker. Amphion I think at least used to cross over to the tweeter somewhere around 1,5kHz, though they did use a waveguide which does give some leeway. Aurelia is doing much the same. Still, they're nowhere near CD's when it comes to dynamic capability.
The thing is, most audiophiles have never experienced anything else. All they've heard are domes of varying quality, because that's all that's getting manufactured under the guise of Hi-Fi apart from some fringe manufacturers like Tannoy and some others. And at least in this corner of the world, large Tannoys really are fringe audiophilia.
This is the important part. That is true.
What is not true is the part about dome tweeter sounding "harsh" if crossed over bellow 2KHz - assuming good implementation.
From frequenting pro audio sites it seems Amphions eat tweeters for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Certainly a weak point but I don't like the woofers they use either. On the whole they appear to be an expensive built copy of the Visaton Studio 2 kit using inferior drivers.
Might be that they're being used beyond what they're being intended to. Used in a home setup, where most of them are made to be used, they should last in my experience.
From what I know, though, they do use quite shallow filters for their tweeters, and they have a point in doing this. This might still be a reason why they have a hunger for tweets in pro use?
I'm not convinced that Amphion is the best that finnish loudspeaker manufacturing has to offer the world, but calling them copies of some Visaton kits is a bit harsh to my ear.
From what I know, though, they do use quite shallow filters for their tweeters, and they have a point in doing this. This might still be a reason why they have a hunger for tweets in pro use?
I'm not convinced that Amphion is the best that finnish loudspeaker manufacturing has to offer the world, but calling them copies of some Visaton kits is a bit harsh to my ear.
Paradoxically, you don't really get much benefit past 2nd order electrical in terms of power handling, and in fact can get worse due to the sharper knee (which would be closer to 4th order acoustic).
This all said, tweeters are oftentimes padded down to meet the woofer and *most* people don't listen that loudly. Ergo 28'ish mm tweeters can be pushed down and not be running out of steam, and buy that extra frequency space to nicely match up with a woofer. Waveguides help for sure, especially loading improving efficiency and maintaining constant directivity across the crossover region.
This all said, tweeters are oftentimes padded down to meet the woofer and *most* people don't listen that loudly. Ergo 28'ish mm tweeters can be pushed down and not be running out of steam, and buy that extra frequency space to nicely match up with a woofer. Waveguides help for sure, especially loading improving efficiency and maintaining constant directivity across the crossover region.
I am just curious if the woofer on the right speaker is a Seas Alum unit?
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